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"this place is very dull and sad. I do not think I shall live here."
"Will the master go back to Shanghai?" asked the other, without any display of emotion.
"I think so," nodded Tarling. "At any rate, this place is too dull. Just miserable little taking-money-easily cases, and wife-husband-lover cases and my soul is sick."
"These are small matters," said Ling philosophically. "But The Master"--this time he spoke of the great Master, Confucius--"has said that all greatness comes from small things, and perhaps some small-piece man will cut off the head of some big-piece man, and then they will call you to find the murderer."
Tarling laughed.
"You're an optimist, Ling," he said. "No, I don't think they'll call me in for a murder. They don't call in private detectives in this country."
Ling shook his head.
"But the master must find murderers, or he will no longer be Lieh Jen, the Hunter of Men."
"You're a bloodthirsty soul, Ling," said Tarling, this time in English, which Ling imperfectly understood, despite the sustained efforts of eminent missionary schools. "Now I'll go out," he said with sudden resolution. "I am going to call upon the small-piece woman whom White-Face desires."
"May I come with you?" asked Ling.
Tarling hesitated.
"Yes, you may come," he said, "but you must trail me."
Carrymore Mansions is a great block of buildings sandwiched between two more aristocratic and more expensive blocks of flats in the Edgware Road. The ground floor is given up to lock-up shops which perhaps cheapened the building, but still it was a sufficiently exclusive habitation for the rents, as Tarling guessed, to be a little too high for a shop assistant, unless she were living with her family. The explanation, as he was to discover, lay in the fact that there were some very undesirable basement flats which were let at a lower rental.
He found himself standing outside the polished mahogany door of one of these, wondering exactly what exc